Bad Timing
by Patricia de Lioncourt
Summary: In a series of dancing deaths, Sam and Dean are brought back to the source, a suspicious garden gnome. But Dean's a big skeptical… at first…


**A/N:** Written for SPNBigPretzel's Halloween Micro Bang. Hope this came out as funny as it was in my head.

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**Bad Timing**

"It's not the damn gnome, Sammy," Dean said, sighing and rolling his eyes.

Sam mimicked his brother's move, but in an entirely different context. The two Winchesters were standing in the middle of Mrs. Havernish's lavish backyard garden, the Impala parked right on the lawn (much to Mrs. Havernish's dismay). They had been drawn here by a series of strange reports which contained people claiming "odd occurrences" within the yard of Mrs. Havernish. "Odd occurrences" meaning "people randomly dancing" and, in some cases, "to death."

A hunt like any other—okay, maybe not exactly like any other—and Sam and Dean had gone to work. They tracked down the survivors of the Dancing Death and the family of those who had not, interviewing them all as FBI agents Rose and Jagger. All the interviews had turned up the same thing—they came to the garden, something came over them, and some of them danced to death.

"They were all standing near the gnome," Sam noted, pointing at the frankly creepy thing.

Dean rolled his eyes again. "It's just a statue, Sammy."

"It's holding a weird looking crystal."

And the younger Winchester was right. It was long, the crystal, and hidden behind some cheap plastic that was supposed to look like a lantern. It appeared to be quartz, in all actuality, but Dean was still not buying it.

"Lots of gnomes hold weird stuff like that."

"It's a few days before Halloween, Dean. Maybe the gnome was awakened or something…"

"Look, just because we managed to figure out that all the people were all standing in this general area does not mean that it had to be this stupid gnome. We're stumped. Let's just face it. None of the lore we've found says anything about dancing deaths."

Sam opened his mouth to argue, to insist again that gnome was the only possible thing that could be causing the choreographed deaths, when his phone chimed in his pocket. He muttered a "hang on" to his brother, lifting it to stare at the screen. Dean watched Sam impatiently as the younger Winchester added that he had to "deal with this for a second." Nose buried in the phone, Sam continued on ignoring his brother on this rather cloudy day.

And it was a cloudy day, miserably gray, and Dean expected the bottom to fall out at any second. With Sam still busy with whatever the hell it was that had suddenly become more important than his crusade against the ceramic gnome, Dean took the opportunity to step a little closer to the statue. He kicked at it a bit with the tip of his boot, tilting his head a bit to the side to start at it. It was just a garden ornament. Sam had finally lost it.

At that precise moment, with Dean standing directly in front of the gnome, a cloud moved, revealing a single ray of sunlight. And that beam of light showered itself down on the gnome, hitting the lantern in its hand—and the crystal within—just right. A rainbow of color suddenly burst forward, dyeing Dean in its radiance, and before the elder Winchester could mutter "cute" his body began to move.

It jerked forward while pulling his arms back in a weird form of The Chicken Dance, before throwing in a bit of shuffling and butt wiggling. After that, it threw in a few cabbage patches and then drew his arms up close to his body again and making him shuffle again.

"Son of a bitch," Dean groaned under his breath before adding, in a louder voice, "Sam."

But Sam's nose was still buried in the phone. Without looking up, he asked, "What, Dean?"

"Sammy! Sammy, look! Sam!" Dean all but yelled as his body was doing a weird, awkward mix of the Hokey-Pokey and The Macarena.

Sam put up a single finger, the universal sign for "one minute," all the while never looking up.

"Sam! Sammy! For the love of God, Sam!"

Dean danced and danced until finally, mercifully, the cloud moved back in front of the sun. The rainbow beam disappeared, and the dancing halted. It was then that Sam finally looked up.

"What the hell is it, Dean?"

Dean, meanwhile, had leapt uncomfortably close to his brother, the better to escape the reach of the gnome of doom, and scratched the back of his head nervously.

"I, uh, think it's the gnome, Sammy."

Sam arched a brow. "What? Why the change?"

Dean glared down his brother. "Never mind. And what the hell was so damned important that you couldn't look up when I asked the first time?"

He snatched the phone from Sam's hand while the taller Winchester protested. Dean glanced down at the screen, and he felt the anger rise in his throat.

"Candy Crush, man? I could've danced myself to death, and you're playing friggin' Candy Crush?"

Sam's brow furrowed before a smirk began to play about his lips. "You, ahem, were dancing?"

Dean shoved the phone back into his brother's hands. "Forget it. Now help me break this stupid gnome."


End file.
